Places of Interest

To make mausoleum entombment available to families for whom the expense of a private facility would be prohibitive, Crown Hill commissioned the architectural firm of D.A. Bolen and Son to design a community-wide resource. Built on the cemetery's North Grounds and dedicated in 1951, the Crown Hill Mausoleum took two-and-a-half years to build.

In 1875, German architect Diedrich A. Bolen designed an impressive limestone Gothic Vault, today known as the Gothic Chapel. Originally a temporary storage vault for those awaiting burial, it contained 96 crypts in the side rooms off the central part of the chapel.

On July 17, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the bill to create fourteen national cemeteries, “for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country.” These national cemeteries were administered by the Department of the Army until 1973, when the responsibility was transferred to the Veterans Administration. Indiana Governor Oliver Perry Morton, called “the soldier’s friend,” by letter dated May 24, 1866, proposed moving several hundred soldiers currently buried at Greenlawn, the old city cemetery. Governor Morton’s reasons for the removal were that the graves were close together and marked with temporary wooden crosses. Later that same year, on August 27, the federal government purchased 1.37 acres at Crown Hill Cemetery for $5,000.00, for the purpose of burying Civil War soldiers.

Crown Hill’s original fence was built of wood. Dr. John M. Kitchen, one of the founding members of the cemetery’s governing Board of Corporators, ventured to Tennessee to select the timber for its construction. While the fence was durable, it was more serviceable then decorative.

There have been 88 family mausoleums erected at Crown Hill. The most recent one was completed in 2023.

Crown Hill started to expand onto the north side of Maple Road (now 38th Street) before the end of the 19th century. The construction of the Subway began in 1925.